With Donna Marshall’s recent retirement after 20 years, it seems appropriate to articulate, reflect on, and perhaps reaffirm, the key concepts that motivate us at CBGH. While healthcare and the economics that shape its delivery can be complex and difficult to understand, the following concepts are really quite simple – and central to our efforts. […]
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A small but growing number of Colorado employers are taking matters into their own hands and opening up medical clinics on their work sites. The clinics come as employers complain about workers missing time to try to get in for doctors’ appointments — or becoming increasingly unproductive as they wait for days to get into […]
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From its 1996 founding, the Colorado Business Group on Health operated as a traditional membership organization, providing business and public agencies with networking, education and special programs focused on workplace health concerns such as insurance costs. In exchange, those members paid annual dues. But in an economy where public-sector organizations and companies are more reluctant […]
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As businessballs.com points out, “Dr. Stephen Covey (1932-2012) remains a hugely influential management guru.” His best-selling book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,[1] has not only been used by millions as “a blueprint for personal development,” but it continues to provide guidance for “any other aspect of human responsibility that you might imagine.” With […]
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For many Colorado employers, employee health insurance is among the largest expense line items, often second only to salaries and benefits. Many manufacturers may pay more for healthcare than for their raw materials. Yet the healthcare market fails to deliver-to-deliver consistent value. Here’ why: Quality Varies Widely. Without question, you can get the best care […]
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The Center for Improving Value in Health Care (CIVHC) just released a new report based on the All Payer Claims Data Base (APCD) highlighting that payments for health care services vary widely across Colorado and emphasizing how “it is impossible to draw general conclusions about variation in prices based solely on geography or volume of services performed. Two examples cited in […]
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Many employers think that the only way to make healthcare more affordable is to cut quality. At CBGH, we hold the opposite view. Decades of research demonstrates that the only way to reduce the growing burden of healthcare costs is to improve quality. Now an excellent article from the Center for Healthcare Quality & Payment […]
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The big question is “How to Pay for Health Care”? The United States stands at a crossroads as it struggles with how to pay for health care. The fee-for-service system, the dominant payment model in the U.S. and many other countries, is now widely recognized as perhaps the single biggest obstacle to improving health care […]
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Although it was nice while it lasted, a multi-year slowdown in the growth of healthcare costs came to an end in 2015 with overall costs increasing 5.8% and spending by private insurers increasing 7.2 %. A December 2nd report by U.S.News, in addition to citing the above, points out that these are the largest increases in the last 8 […]
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Nearly one-third of participating Colorado hospitals received the highest grade possible for safety practices in a recent report from The Leapfrog Group, a national consumer-health watchdog organization. Fourteen of the 43 hospitals that Leapfrog examined received an “A” grade for their ability to protect patients from accidents, injuries and infections, while another 17 received a […]
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They certainly don’t carry the same brand recognition as Coca-Cola, McDonalds, or even pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, but last year the largest pharmacy benefit manager in the country reported nearly as much revenue as those three companies combined. With $102 billion in revenue in 2015, Express Scripts Inc. is a giant in the pharmaceutical supply chain […]
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